Paladins as tanks
An effective tank of any class must accomplish two things: # Hold aggro on monsters the group is fighting # Mitigate damage from those monsters enough to stay alive Generating Threat and Holding Aggro In order to hold aggro on a target, a tank must be able to generate more threat than his comrades. A paladin tank accomplishes this mainly by dealing a large amount of Holy damage while under the influence of Righteous Fury. All of a Paladin's attacks scale with both attack power, and spell power. Since the introduction of Touched by the Light however, gearing spell power is no longer an issue, nor a requirement. Advantages in Threat generation Paladins generate threat by putting out a high amount of constant damage, rather than high threat/low damage abilities like Sunder. A substantial portion of the damage a Protection Paladin generates is reactive damage; that is, damage inflicted on an attacker as a result of the attacker hitting the paladin. This is a tremendous boon to the Protection paladin's ability to hold aggro on multiple targets. The reactive Holy damage caused by Retribution Aura and Holy Shield is more than enough to overcome the threat caused by basic healing spells. In most cases, the Aggro is even enough to overcome DPS as well. A Protection Paladin's Taunt (Righteous Defense) is extremely powerful, as unlike other tanks, it can force up to three mobs off of one target, in case of a misspull. Once the targets are all taunted, the attacks on the Paladin and reactive damage alone is enough to maintain Aggro permanently. Disadvantages in Threat generation Protection Paladins will find it impossible to tank any mob that is immune to spell damage, and difficult to tank mobs that spam Mana Burn. Paladins make poor off-tanks. While Shield of Righteousness and Hammer of the Righteous allow much more direct threat with reasonable mana efficiency, they are still at a disadvantage to other classes because they lose a large proportion of their threat due to not being hit. Damage Mitigation Paladins achieve damage mitigation against incoming attacks in much the same way that Warriors do. Both classes wear plate armor and can equip a shield. Both classes are capable of dodging, parrying, and blocking. Generally, the order of important for tankadins gearing up for raid is: # At least 540 defense for level 80, which is the absolute minimum needed to be uncritable. Resilience can be added from pvp gear, to make a total uncritable rating of 5.6% (Though not recommended). # When the above is met, start stacking defense stats (defense, dodge, parry, block, armor), stamina and strength. The old 102.4% total avoidance/blocking needed to be uncrushable is no longer necessary since patch 3.0.2, but to have full avoidance/blocking is recommended for high end raiding. Gear is arguably the most important factor for the success of a tankadin. For those who want to learn more about tankadin gear mechanics, please check the related links at the end of this page. See also: Paladins as tanks: Gear Mechanics Basic Paladin Tanking Abilities Unlike most tanking classes, Paladins find themselves using many abilities, and putting out a large amount of damage. This may in some cases, allow Paladins who have specced in the Holy or Retribution tree to also act as tanks, although it requires a very skilled player to do so. Once skilled enough, a Paladin tank will find the Global Cooldown gets in the way of maximizing DPS and Mitigation Holy Shield Core ability of tankadins that provides both mitigation and threat generation. It increases your chance to block by 30% and deals Holy damage to the mob. It has totally eight charges, which should be sufficient to remain active for most boss fights but can be used up when AoE tanking. Consecration The Paladin signature move, capable of generating massive amounts of aggro on unlimited amounts of mobs. Though the mana cost of this spell is extremely high, in a situation where the spell is required the tank surely will regenerate all of the mana back with Blessing of Sanctuary alone. This move breaks most forms of Crowd Control, so be careful when using it. Hammer of the Righteous A new powerful move added in patch 3.0.2. Its damage is based off the weapon's dps and affects up to three targets. This move is the equivalent to a warrior's Cleave or a druid's Swipe more or less. Shield of Righteousness Another new ability acquired at level 75, Shield of Righteousness is an extremely high damage and threat maneuver that hits for thousands, and most likely makes pulling the mob from the Paladin impossible. Its damage is based off the Paladin's block value plus a fixed damage. It is not affected by spell power or attack power of the paladin. Avenger's Shield Paladin tanks can throw his shield, dealing thousands of damage to up to three targets who are within 10 yards of each other. It is normally used to pull the mobs at the beginning but since it is an instant cast now, it can also be used during mid-fight. The targets are also dazed for 10 seconds, which depending on the situation could be good or bad. Judgements Though there are three different judgements that can be used (Light, Wisdom, or Justice), they all do the same amount of damage. However, each of them cause different debuff on the mobs. Judgement of Light is the preferred judgement because it heals the tank and raid members, and more importantly, healing done this way generates a large amount of threat all attributed to the tank, as well as possibly lowering a healer's threat generation by reducing his need to spam heals. Occasionally, you may also want to use Judgement of Wisdom, which replenishes mana of raid members, much like Vampiric Embrace and Replenishment. This helps damage dealers maintaining their mana throughout some longer boss fights. Currently, Seal of Vengeance/Seal of Corruption is the standard seal that provides the best threat. Other seals can be used for specific situation, such as when Damage over Time effect on the mob is not desired, or when replenishing of mana/health is needed. Righteous Defense The Paladin's taunt. Unlike other tanks' taunt, Righteous Defense affects up to mobs who are targeting the friendly target. Auras For beginner tanks in Heroics and raids, Devotion Aura will be the aura of choice. After the Paladin and all other tanks in the raid group surpass 25,000 armor, the reward for armor bonus diminishes, and Retribution Aura will make a better choice. Retribution Aura deals additional damage to attackers, helping with threat for all tanks in the group, and increasing overall dps Blessings Blessing of Kings (with maxed Improved Blessing of Kings) is the primary blessing for most situations. It provides 10% extra stamina, agility (more dodge) and strength (more block and threat). However, when AoE tanking trash mobs, or tanking overgeared contents, Blessing of Sanctuary is better because of its mana regeneration effect. In raid, it would be the best to have both blessings! After that, Blessing of Might improves the threat and Blessing of Wisdom helps mana regeneration. Threat Rotation The so-called "9696 rotation" is the most common spell rotation used by experienced tanks to generation the maximum threat. It requires one point in Improved Judgement and avoiding the use of Glyph of Consecration. 6 seconds cooldown abilities: *Shield of Righteousness *Hammer of the Righteousness 9 seconds cooldown abilities: *Holy Shield *Judgement (of your choice) *Consecration The rotation requires the use of 6 sec abilities and 9 sec abilities alternately to provide a smooth sequence that keeps the above abilities on cooldown most of the time. (Note that Holy Shield and Consecration actually are 8 seconds cooldown but there is no way to utilitize this one second without messing up the whole rotation.) Example: Pulling with Avenger's Shield #9: Holy Shield #6: Shield of Righteousness #9: Judgement #6: Hammer of the Righteous #9: Consecration #6: Shield of Righteouness #9: Holy Shield #6: Hammer of the Righteous #9: Judgement #6: Shield of Righteousness #9: Consecration #6: Hammer of the Righteous repeat from 1 to 12 The order of the 6 sec abilities can be changed among themselves according to personal prefernce, so are the 9 sec abilities. Consecration can be left out in situation where AoE damage is not desired, or occasionally be replaced with Exocism, Holy Wrath or Avenger's Shield. Emergencies, Panic Buttons and Special Situations No matter how good your gear and skill is, you will still face situations that threaten your life from time to time as a tank. Paladins have a passive skill called Ardent Defender which significantly decreases damage taken when the Paladin's health is under 35%, giving them an effective hp boost of 15% (making it as large if not bigger than a druid's). Paladins have several panic buttons. At low health, they can restore all of their own health with Lay on Hands. When anticipating high damage, they can cast Divine Protection to reduce all damage taken by 50%, and even Sacred Shield to absorb a little more. Paladins can self Cleanse some types of debuff on himself. Fears and debuffs can be quickly removed by using divine shield and canceling it with this macro: Useful_macros_for_paladins#Tanking_Divine_Shield. Keep in mind it needs to be pressed twice or else you'll end up bubbled with a dead party. Misconceptions and changes in Wrath of the Lich King Because of major changes between The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, there are some misconceptions around Paladin tanking that need to be addressed. Mana Supply Because of Blessing of Sanctuary, combined with Spiritual Attunement and Divine Plea, mana supply should not be a problem for a Paladin tank. If you are running out of mana, check that you are using Blessing of Sanctuary; you may accidentally overwrite it with a greater blessing when grouped with other Paladins. Spellpower At level 80, Paladins should not be stacking spellpower for tanking. Spellpower does benefit Paladins by boosting holy damage from all major threat-generating abilities. However, Paladins are intended to get their spellpower through Stamina (with the talent Touched By The Light) and not by stacking it directly. Level 80 gear with spellpower has stats oriented toward healing. Paladins benefit far more from gear with Strength, high Stamina and defense. See also *Tank *Paladin Builds: Protection *Paladins as tanks: Gear Mechanics *Paladin's Spell Hit and Spell Damage Coefficients *Morals and ethics of paladin tanking External links *Tankadin.com Tank + Paladin = Tankadin. A World of Warcraft fan site for paladin tanks. Includes a blog, movies, technical articles, and a forum with a large user community to provide boss strategies, talent builds, and gear advice. *Maintankadin Forums A forum dedicated for discussion about paladin tanking. Contains a lot of useful information such as general paladin tanking guides, strategies, gear information and different talent builds. *The Protection Paladin Field Guide at Elitistjerks Category:Paladins